


But for those who love, time is eternal

by henrifox



Category: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26307547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henrifox/pseuds/henrifox
Summary: Oliver is damaged. James is late home one night. They're terribly in love.
Relationships: James Farrow/Oliver Marks
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	But for those who love, time is eternal

Lost time. Lost time. Lost time. It repeats like a mantra in his broken record of a mind. **Lost time. Lost time. Lost time.**  
Days, weeks, months, hours, years, gone. Seconds, gone. Moments, gone.  
Lost time. Lost time. Lost time.  
Time that won’t come back. Time that he **can’t** get back.  
_Who can control his fate?_  
He could control things before, to an extent, but he can’t control this. He could save James, or so he thought, but he can’t bring back what’s been missed. He can’t. And it haunts him.  
He can help James, of course-coax him through nightmares, guilt, pain. He can try to make up for the absent kisses with new ones, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they are just that: absent. Gone.  
It doesn’t matter how often James tells him that he’s being ridiculous, that he’s already done more than most people could even fathom- Oliver sees it behind his eyes. He sees that as much as James doesn’t blame Oliver, he knows he’s right. “Stop thinking, my sweet.” James will say, in response to nothing but a tense in Oliver’s shoulders, and he’ll brush the pad of his thumb over his eyelids or take his hand and plant a tender kiss on his knuckles. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re here.”  
Oliver will cry. He will cry for their pain and the time that they’ve lost. And James will hold him, will rest his lips on Oliver’s ear and murmur words in a low voice, his voice steady with soothing affection. _“But for those who love, time is eternal.”_  
But nothing works, not for any extended period of time. Oliver can never be enough. Was he ever enough? He thinks back to his first days at Dellecher, how it barely took one look at everyone around him for the unwavering feelings of inferiority to kick in. Things like that take work to undo, and if anything he’s only gone backwards in that department.

The moon is full on the night that James is late. Full, but shrouded by clouds. Touché. _Do not swear by the moon._ The thing about James being late is that- well, he never is. Not anymore. Oliver’s fingers barely have to start drumming anxiously on his thigh before his mind starts working itself into overdrive. He can’t lose him. Not now, not ever. He can’t go through that again. He knows that James has seen what that did to him- the years Oliver had spent without James’ visits, without anyone telling him why. He knows that James had seen it on the night Oliver found him, shut away in his small house in Del Norte. (James’ eyes had widened dramatically when he answered the door, Oliver promptly collapsing into a heap at his feet and gripping him so hard he drew blood, screeching with such vigour that James had later told him he’d almost hated himself more intensely than the night they took Oliver away.)  
All this, and yet tonight- James is late.  
With shaking hands Oliver lights a cigarette, his thumb striking the lighter three, maybe four times before the flame bursts. The intensity of his smoking habit isn’t something that’s impressed James, not that he’d tell him to stop. He wants the best for him, he wants him to be okay.  
Oliver wants James to be okay, too, naturally. He knows that he’s not. _One’s pain is lessened by another’s anguish._ They’re almost identical in that sense, both so desperate to keep each other safe and protected that they’ll ignore their own state of brokenness. It creates a vicious cycle. Catch, hold, catch, hold. Break, ignore, break, ignore.

The cigarette burns down so quickly after his first and only drag that he wonders how his mind manages to warp time in such juxtaposing ways when he’s stressed. Two minutes can be two hours, two hours can be two minutes. He panics when he realises this apparent halt, hating himself for it already and stubbing out the cigarette on the table. He scrapes his chair back, stands, calls James- no answer. Two minutes. James was two minutes late before he’d lit the cigarette. Now it was five. Three minutes he’d sat without so much as a conscious blink. He catches himself in the mirror, hair somehow even more dishevelled than usual and eyes glassy. He wonders how James still loves him. Sometimes he wonders how James ever even loved him in the first place, but that’s beside the point.

Oliver hears the front door open, but he doesn’t move or even turn. He keeps facing the mirror, his eyes closing and throat pulsing with a swallow. The exhale of relief is louder than he’d like to admit.

“Oliver? Oliver, I’m here.” He hears James walking through the hall, the pace of his footsteps telling him that James knows his mistake. He knows. He always knows.  
“Oliver, I’m here” he repeats, closer this time. Very close. A hand cups the side of Oliver’s face, pulling it down gently to rest in the crook of a neck. James pries his other hand open, previously clenched into an unwilling fist, intertwining it’s fingers with his own.  
They stand still for a moment, before Oliver wills his eyes to open. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He knows it’s stupid, how quickly his mind escalates everything, _as infective as the flu._ He just can’t- he **can’t.**  
James looks worried, dropping his keys to the floor as he envelopes Oliver into a hug. “I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry. My phone died.”  
“S’okay.”  
“It’s not okay. You know I hate hurting you. I don’t do this. I don’t do late with you.”  
Oliver’s mouth perks into an unexpected smile. _“If you love and get hurt, love more._ You shouldn’t have to put up with my bullshit.”  
James must sense the newfound humour, and he lets out a small chuckle before planting a kiss on Oliver’s cheek.

“Have you eaten?”  
Oliver says he has, which is a lie. James knows it’s a lie, too, Oliver can tell. James always knows better than to call Oliver out on things like this, trusting that he’s fibbing for a reason. It goes the other way, too.  
“Bed?” James asks gently, knowing it’s what they both want. Oliver nods and gives him a soft smile.  
They brush their teeth in silence, Oliver tracing his thumb over James’ arm and James resting his head on his shoulder. They undress, lay, breathe in unison.  
After a few moments Oliver switches out the light, and is met with a kiss when he turns back. He relaxes into it, wrapping his arms around James’ torso and pulling him in. They break a second or so later, legs tangling instinctively and James’ head moving to rest on Oliver’s chest, his cheek cool against his skin. Two bodies slotted together, as if it’s what they were created for. Oliver traces his knuckles down James’ back, taking James’ hand in his other and intertwining their fingers. He always knows that he has him when he holds him like this. He knows that James isn't going anywhere; neither of them are. _The lords of all eternity._  
This is what they had done for the first week. This, and nothing else. Neither of them had left the house for seven days, not until they had no food left to live on except some slightly stale bread. They didn’t leave because they didn’t want to. Neither wanted to and neither had to.

It's been three weeks since then, and they still leave trips to a minimum. They don't care about anything else. James is here. Oliver has found him. If they want to spend their time curled up together on the couch or in bed then that’s what they’ll damned well do. Sometimes, Oliver will wake with James’ head nuzzled into his shoulder, an exact mimic of how it had been that night ten years ago. A useless parallel, but one that sticks with Oliver nonetheless. He’d spent hours on end in prison thinking about that morning- the way his heart had hitched at the sight of James so close, so peaceful.

Oliver plants a kiss into James’ hair, revelling in the fact that he’s able to lie and watch him drift off to sleep every night now. Faint light from the moon casts shadows over his face, _stars above._ Oliver wonders how he managed to find and catch someone so breathtakingly beautiful in every sense. James’ eyes, his words, his lips. The crease under his right eye that deepens when he smiles. The tender note in his voice every time he calls Oliver ‘darling.’ All of it. Every single breath.  
A couple of minutes pass, and Oliver is debating letting his own eyes close when a soft smile forms on James’ lips.  
Oliver isn’t sure if James is awake or dreaming, so he whispers a quiet “What?”  
James’ eyes don’t open, and he sighs hazily, giggling softly before mumbling a drowsy reply. “Nothing,” he says, “just know you look pretty.”  
The butterflies that never quite go away when he’s with James flutter softly in Oliver’s stomach. He plants another kiss onto his head and shifts James' torso off his own chest, without untangling their legs. James’ arm drapes itself lazily around his waist, and Oliver lets his eyes close.  
“I love you,” James murmurs, and this time it’s Oliver’s mouth that forms a sleepy smile.  
_“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”_ He replies, hearing the ruffle of the sheet as James’ head shifts in even closer to his own.  
James kisses him gently, _“You have witchcraft in your lips.”_  
_“He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.”_  
There’s a pause, and James sighs quietly. “I do love you, you know. _I do love nothing in the world so much as you.”_  
Oliver finds James’ jaw with his hand and cups it, thumb tracing over his stubble. “I know.” And he believes it. _“If music be the food of love, play on.”_  
_“Till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old.”_ James turns his head to press a kiss into Oliver’s palm. _“Never doubt that I love.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Kudos appreciated :)


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